“If you had told me, though, when I was twenty-four that I would write about Skokie, Illinois, where I grew up, I would have said, Youre out of your mind. Why would I have Skokie in a poem? But you ...”

“Works of art imitate and provoke other works of art, the process is the source of art itself.”

“Friedrich Rckert wrote 425 poemsAfter his two youngest childrenDied from scarlet feverWithin sixteen days of each otherIn 1833 and 1834 he could not copeAnd often thought they had gone outFor a whi...”

“You're trying to write about something that's sacred. You're trying to bring the seriousness of life and death to it, and you're trying to find a way to dramatize it, and you're trying to give lang...”

“Poetry takes courage because you have to face things and you try to articulate how you feel.”

“Daydreaming is one of the key sources of poetry - a poem often starts as a daydream that finds its way into language - and walking seems to bring a different sort of alertness, an associative kind ...”

“This world has need of song and sword.”

“Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter, sermons and soda water the day after.”

“I've passed up on many a thing that could have made me a big artist or something. Like, I was offered a feature on a Christina Aguilera song and I turned it down. It just wasn't right. She's cool, ...”

“Words are like Leaves; and where they most abound,Much Fruit of Sense beneath is rarely found.”

“Then one day a thought clicked my mind... and even theweirdest event in the past start Making complete sense...”

“I am not a genius, I am just curious. I ask many questions. and when the answer is simple, then God is answering.”

“Happiness is a continuation of happenings which are not resisted.”

“Faith embraces many truths which seem to contradict each other.”